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Project 57 Week 45: Fiddling

Published January 15, 2025 by Ashley Edwards

The Métis are well known for their musicality and celebratory nature, seen through jigging and step dancing which is accompanied by fiddle music. Fiddle music is “similar to the culture of storytelling” because “fiddle songs and tunes often have personal meanings for their creator and their creator’s family” (Alberta Métis, Métis Fiddle). Like oral stories, “fiddle tunes” were not “written down” but instead would be “passed down in person from one generation of fiddlers to the next” (Alberta Métis, Métis Fiddle).

Although fiddles were introduced to the Red River Métis by Europeans, “fiddles were often handmade from maple wood and birch since most Métis could not afford ready-made ones” (Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada). Not only were the fiddles handcrafted, but the Métis also began “making their own tunes, often mixing First Nations, Scots, and French-Canadian rhythms, but with unique beats” which later inspired “new dances” like the Métis jig (Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada). The Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) states that “the first recognized composer of Métis songs was Pierre Falcon (1793-1876) ... and ... Louis Riel also wrote some notable Métis songs” (MMF). A quick tempo with a “routine backbeat” plus the unique tuning of the “bottom string from G to Ac” distinguishes the Métis sound from “waltzes and reels” whilst making it “particularly suited to dancing ... the Métis jig” (MMF).